Ирландцы и Америка (english)

Irishand America The American connection is basedon such enormous numbers of Irish men and women making their way to the NewWorld for so many different reasons that nobody is quite sure of the actualnumbers involved. It is estimated that in the period between 1717 and 1775something like a quarter of a million Ulstermen settled in the North Americancontinent and, between 1820 and 1920, something like four-and-a-quarter millionpeople

emigrated from Ireland to earn a living in the United States. Thereasons for going were many. The Ulster folk who emigrated did so voluntarily,and were almost entirely of Presbyterian stock, seeking to escape from theProtestant Ascendancy, with which they had little or nothing in common. Theearly Irish from the South were often bondsmen, who had sold their services aslaborers, in advance

of their emigrating. The millions who went on the movewent because of the famines in Ireland. They crossed the Atlantic in fearfulconditions and they died in their thousands of cholera on arrival. They came inthe coffin ships from Queenstown, from Galway and from Liverpool.They were mainly from the hardest stricken areas of the western seaboard, fromClare, Mayo, Donegal, Kerry and Cork. They were unskilled laborers who tendedto herd into the cities

of the east coast, and they were the men who built therailroads of America and, in the main, were the hewers of wood and drawers ofwater. The alternatives for the log-cabin Irish were, all too frequently, killor be killed. They more than survived -they prospered. They made, in manycases, vast fortunes, they gave America at least ten Presidents, if not a rounddozen, and southern

Ireland ultimately produced John F. Kennedy and RonaldReagan. The round dozen would include Richard Nixon who, on his visit toIreland, unearthed Irish ancestors on his Milhous side, and Jimmy Carter, whocan claim Irish blood from the North of Ireland on his maternal side. ThePresidents from the historic counties of Ulster inc1ude

Andrew Jackson, JamesKnox Polk, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnston, Ulysses Grant, Chester Arthur,Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley and Woodrow Wilson. Threeof them were born in Ulster, while the remainder were of Irish descent.Speaking of Irish gallantry on the American scene, perhaps it is best to drawthe veil

quickly over the activities of the Costelloes and the O Bannions, theMalones and the Sheehys in the bootlegging days of Prohibition. Whenapprehended, they all claimed in court that they were as white as driven snow, for they were doing their thirsting neighbours a good turn, based on thedays long ago back home when their ancestors had made poteen anddistributed it throughout the neighbouring countryside, without thought

ofprofit. A loveable, hospitable and hardworking section of the ethnic groupsthat go to make up the peoples of the United States, the Irish have always andwill always retain a deep love for the land of their forebears. Once the waveupon wave of Irish emigrants had found work in America they to send remittanceshome to Ireland, and, of course, to encourage their relations to follow intheir footsteps. The Irish labourers of the 1840s sent about a million dollarsback to their homeland,

and by the1870s, when more than ten million dollars wasf1owing back to Ireland, the countvf s dependence on the Letter fromAmerica became not only a way of life, but a means of existence,particularly in the congested districts of the west coast conties of Ireland. By theturn of the century, the Irish had settled in as part of the labour force,working from dawn to dusg often in appallingly bad conditions generated by

NewWorld capitalist cities. icy were shop, saloon , gamblers, prize-fighters, andrailroad ganges. They were, in the , the pick-and-shovel brigade, who began tomove west as the railroad tracks were laid. They were the builders of roads andhouses, and diggers of gold and silver. Theybegan to 611 San Francisco and Virginia City, and they were among the first tostrike it rich in the new silver and gold mines of the West. Some who made itto

Nob Hill became bankers and industrialists, and Nevada and Virginia Cityresounded with Irish names in the mid nineteenth century.